We got the ZG1 notice about a month ago for our 2007 Prius with about 180,000 miles, and followed the notice's guidance to "ignore if the problem isn't happening". The extension was until Dec 31, 2017. Yesterday, many of the dashboard lights went on, and the problem seems to be happening. At the time when we were driving around, the car went into "low power mode", and we barely got home. There was barely enough power to get up a slight incline on a public street at at stop-light. Once we got home, we called the Toyota dealer. They didn't know anything about a ZG1 notification of warranty extension. Then we tried to drive it around the block to see if it might have healed itself. The transmission will only go into Park and Neutral. We had to push it back into the driveway (slight uphill). We may have to have it towed to the dealership. Any suggestions appreciated.
What has that got to do with the brake actuator tsb? Sounds like you lost the Hybrid battery or the inverter coolant pump. The pump had a recall on it also.
The Prius was towed to the nearby dealer on Wednesday. The FAQ that was on the ZG1 notice mentioned that the problem might apply if a series of dashboard warnings appeared. Those were present, so that's how I proceeded. I've got my fingers crossed that is what the problem turns out to be, so it is a no-cost repair. Do you have more info on the "recall on inverter coolant pump" you mentioned? I found this link: Prius Inverter Water Pump Recall C0U - Details for Owners - Luscious Garage | Hybrid Specialists
Bad news. The service adviser told me the inverter is bad ... independent of an earlier recall. The estimate is $3600 to repair. Ouch. When I check KBB (Kelly Blue Book), the "price to buy/sell to private party" is about $3500. That's lower than I was hoping/expecting. And it gets more involved: we had a bad hailstorm in late July, and the car took a moderate beating from golf-ball size hail. I notified my insurance agent, but haven't had an adjuster look at it yet. Our insurance deductible is $2000. There may be enough damage that the vehicle would be total'ed by the insurance company. I'm fuzzy on what happens to the claim if 5 to 6 weeks later the vehicle becomes inoperable with $3500 in repairs needed. Would they base the value of the car on the day before the hail storm, or 6 weeks later?
Thats what I meant. But that sucks....you can pick up an Inverter off ebay pretty cheap but its alot of work to replace. Just alot of wrenching. many posters have replaced it themselves. The Inverter on the G2 is a amazing piece of engineering and the heart of a Prius but if you overheat it bad it will fail so somewhere in its life its lost a coolant pump and someone drived it hard with no coolant. The failure rate is extremely low on that unit given how hard it works. It deserves the utmost maintenance if you own a Prius and want to keep the car. Much more so that the trans or engine coolant imho.
